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with the twins. Our living room has no regular furniture, just mattresses along the walls, covered with blankets and lots of colorful pillows. Making pillows is a hobby of Tammy’s. She gets clothes from the second-hand store on dollar-a-pound days, and cuts them up into shapes and sews them back together to make pillows. They’re really pretty.
    We don’t have a television. We used to, but Mom had to sell it to get money for a treatment for the boys. I don’t really mind. It didn’t work very well, anyway.
    The twins were curled up with Tammy, makingtheir little noises and playing with their fingers.
    â€œIf they’re quiet now, they won’t sleep tonight,” I said.
    Mom smiled me a hello smile. “We’ll worry about that tonight. Right now, I want all my babies close to me.”
    I like it when she calls us her babies. It’s kind of a dopey thing to say, since we’re not babies, but I like it anyway.
    I joined them on the mattress and we all snuggled in. We might have stayed like that all night, but my stomach let out a huge rumble, so Tammy decided it was time to light the fire under the soup. She meant turn the stove burner on. There’s no actual fire. We have an electric stove.
    We almost always have soup. Even if we don’t have it for dinner, it’s always around. Tammy makes it herself and puts everything in it, but lets me pick out any lima beans I find. Sometimes we have soup and bread, sometimes soup and sandwiches, sometimes soup poured over mashed potatoes. On this night, we were having soup poured over little squares of toasted stale bread.
    While Tammy made the toast and cut it into squares, I stirred the soup and sang the soup song:
    â€œBeautiful soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!”
    It’s the Mock Turtle’s song from
Alice in Wonderland
. We made up the tune. Sometimes we make up other words to it.
    â€œHorrible soup, so slimy and foul
Made with the head of a wormy owl!
Who for such maggots would not stoop?
Soup of the graveyard, horrible soup!
Soup of the graveyard, horrible soup!”
    When I was younger, Tammy sometimes put joke eyeballs and big rubber insects in my bowl of soup, but I’ve mostly outgrown that now.
    Later that night, we took the twins out to the baseball field in the middle of Regent Park. We all ran around until they were tired out and ready for sleep. We were all alone out there, just us. The air was clean and cold. Tammy and I played tag, and the twins ran with us. It felt great. It felt like we were the most powerful people in the world.
    I could see other people looking down on us from their windows and their balconies. They could hear us laughing and having a good time. I wanted to wave to them all, so I did. Tammy sawwhat I was doing, and she laughed and waved, too. Some of the people waved back. I think our good time gave them a good time, too.
    Back at home, I did my homework while Tammy put the boys to bed. When she didn’t come back into the kitchen, I went into the boys’ room. They have mattresses on the floor, like we have in the living room.
    Mom was sound asleep, half of her on David’s bed, half of her on the floor. It didn’t surprise me to see her there. She often fell asleep when she was putting them to bed. She’s almost always tired.
    I covered Mom up with David’s blanket and kissed her goodnight.
    Our apartment has a tiny bedroom for Tammy and a bigger one for the twins. I have an alcove. It has a narrow bed built up high beside a window, with a ladder beside it. A curtain can be pulled across it, like the upper berth of a train. Underneath it is my bookshelf and a place to keep my clothes. My real treasures are on shelves by my bed. I keep the important stuff up high to keep my brothers out of it.
    When I lie on my bunk and look out the